In Fkance. 595 priesthood, but his love of art led him to renounce the sacred profession; and having obtained a grant of five hundred francs from his native place, he went to Paris, and began to study under Delaroche and Gleyre. In 1848 appeared his first pictures, one a genre subject called Le Dessus de Parle, and the other a sacred work, Christ's Tomb, succeeded a little later by a Roman Placard, and the Seraglio. Hamon now for a time gave up easel painting, and accepted employment in the Sevres manufactory. In 1852 he pro- duced his Comedie Humaine, which made his reputation. The most noteworthy of his later works are Ma soeur n'y est pas ; Ce nest pas moi ; Les Orphelins ; L } amour de son Troupeau. In 1856 he went to the East, and most of the pictures subsequently painted are on Oriental subjects. Alexandre Georges Henri Regnault (1843 — 1871) was the pupil of Lamothe and Cabanel. In 1866 he won the grand prize of Rome, and in 1869 a gold medal. In the succeeding years he attracted much notice by his Still Life, his portrait of General Prim, An Execution at the Alhambra, and Salome la danseuse, exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1870, and took high rank amongst cotemporary painters ; but the terrible war of 1870—1, which cut short so many careers, broke out just as Regnault was attaining to celebrity. He took service as a national guard, and was killed in the sortie from Paris. The French school of painters never stood higher than at the present day. To write of them and their works would occupy a volume : we must therefore refrain from mentioning the names of living men as being beyond our province. Q Q 2
